NewsClicks

November 3, 2016 - We've done extensive time studies on the November ballot - and here's what we've found out. The November 8th ballot will take the prepared voter (choices known before entering the voting booth) 8 1/2 minutes to vote. How does this compare to the June Primary? The average time it took to vote the June ballot was just under 4 minutes.

November 2, 2016 - Pursuant to California Election Code section 15360 (d) this serves as public notice that we will be conducting a random draw of 1% of our precincts in the November 8, 2016 General Election to be used in a manual tally of votes cast. This manual tally is used to verify the electronic tally of our voting system and the vote-by-mail tally system. The random draw will occur on Thursday, November 10, 2016 at 11:00 a.m. The manual tallies will follow the random draw and will take place until complete. Both processes are open to the public.

November 1, 2016 - We believe transparency is important and welcome those who wish to observe on Election Day in polling places. However, it's important for members of the public to understand what is (and what is not) allowed in a polling place as an observer. We are offering training for those interested in observing as a member of the public - the training is free and spots are still available for our November 3rd training (which will be taking place at 1:30 p.m. at our Santa Ana office - 1300 South Grand Avenue, Building C). Sign up by visiting our website ocvote.com.

October 28, 2016 - We feel that it's important to remind voters to only include their voted ballot in the ballot return envelope (not additional ballots). Occasionally we receive two ballots in one return envelope - and it almost always is the ballot of the spouse, significant other, child, etc. When two are included it's impossible to determine which ballot should be applied to the voter in the household.

October 27, 2016 - Think ahead to Election Day for a moment. You might be in a hurry, but it's possible that your polling place will be crowded at the moment you arrive. You can avoid this scenario by choosing the time you want to vote - on your schedule - by visiting one of our six Vote Centers in Orange County. These Vote Centers will be open beginning this coming Saturday, October 29th and will be open everyday through November 7th. Don't have time to vote in-person? Consider voting-by-mail - the fastest growing method of voting in Orange County. 

October 26, 2016 - What if you still haven't received your ballot? There are a couple of clear options for you, but first an important point: If you changed your address after October 10th, and you normally receive your ballot every election, your ballot would have been sent to your old address. Why? When we mail the bulk of our ballots we must capture the data on a single day so that we can address the ballots.

October 25, 2016 - Ballot returns are flooding into our office ahead of Election Day. As of this morning, we have received 163,010 a 5.8% increase over 2012 for the same period. Out of these ballots 668 voters forgot to sign their ballot envelope. We have sent each of these voters an important letter - urging them to cure the lack of a signature. Fortunately, the vast majority of voters have signed their ballot envelope. 

October 23, 2016 - California's Top Two Primary Act changed the way we vote in California. The top two vote-getters at the primary election advance to the general election for voter-nominated offices, even if both candidates have specified the same party preference designation. What are voter nominated offices? U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, State Senate and State Assembly. 

October 22, 2016 - With California's lengthy ballot your ballot could take two first-class stamps to mail. Depending on where you live your ballot may be longer than your cross-county neighbor. Some communities have more contests on the ballot. Take for instance, there are 17 state propositions on everyone's ballot - some cities will also have local council races and measures (one city has 8 additional measures).

October 19, 2016 - In the first two days of ballot returns ballots were about 20% ahead of 2012 numbers. Now that we have four days worth of returns the comparison is closer to 2012. We currently have 60,845 ballots returned - at the same time in 2012 we had 60,325 (a 0.86% increase). You can track our daily ballot returns by visiting our Data Central section on our website at ocvote.com/datacentral.